Recording machines, and, in particular, adding machines are now made to carry a spool on which is wound a strip of paper. The lead end of the strip of paper is passed around a platen of the adding machine whereupon indicia or the like is imprinted on one surface of that paper. It is customary that the strip of paper is torn off after the record has been completed. These torn strips of paper have been a problem, and are often simply thrown away or are clipped to the item associated with the adding process.
Such a process of using one side of a strip of paper, and discarding such strip was found to be wasteful and uneconomical. Accordingly, the art has included mechanisms that are intended to facilitate re-use of the paper by winding the used paper in a manner that inverts the paper so a clean side is in position to be re-run through the machine.
In operation of such machines, paper tape is unwound from source roll, inprinted on one side thereof, and then re-wound onto take-up roll while having tape further drawn from the source roll. During the movement of the tape from the source roll to the take-up roll, the tape is inverted so that the tape has a clean side presented outwardly when it is wound onto the take-up roll. The rolls are then reversed, so that the take-up roll serves as the source roll, and vice versa. Examples of such devices are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,828,727, 4,168,038 and 4,492,345.
While effective, such devices often require the source roll to engage the take-up roll so properly timed feeding and take up are effected. This can make removing a portion of the printed tape cumbersome.
After the tape is printed on both sides, this tape is often simply placed in a drawer if it is to be saved for some reason. If, at a later time, some figure must be verified, the tape must be unwound manually. The devices such as the aforementioned devices, do not provide any convenient storage feature whereby the used tape can be stored and unwound at a latter time if necessary.
Therefore, there is a need for a device for storing the paper tape used by office machines, such as adding machines, or the like, that includes a mechanism for winding and inverting the tape and for storing the tape in a manner that either said of the tape can be accessed.